Problem: Ben is 18 years older than Tiffany. Two years ago, Ben was 4 times as old as Tiffany. How old is Tiffany now?
We can use the given information to write down two equations that describe the ages of Ben and Tiffany. Let Ben's current age be $b$ and Tiffany's current age be $t$ The information in the first sentence can be expressed in the following equation: $b = t + 18$ Two years ago, Ben was $b - 2$ years old, and Tiffany was $t - 2$ years old. The information in the second sentence can be expressed in the following equation: $b - 2 = 4(t - 2)$ Now we have two independent equations, and we can solve for our two unknowns. Because we are looking for $t$ , it might be easiest to use our first equation for $b$ and substitute it into our second equation. Our first equation is: $b = t + 18$ . Substituting this into our second equation, we get the equation: $(t + 18)$ $-$ $2 = 4(t - 2)$ which combines the information about $t$ from both of our original equations. Simplifying both sides of this equation, we get: $t + 16 = 4 t - 8$ Solving for $t$ , we get: $3 t = 24$ $t = 8$.